Preface

This morning's post is taking longer in the oven than expected, so in the meantime please accept this preface as a tiny appetizer. It's low sodium, low calories and has zero fat grams.

Stick it in the fridge beside the half-eaten salad, the leftover steak from Tueday and yesterday's sub if you're in a hurry; microwave later for lunch.

Woke up again at 2:30 this morning, still snickering about yesterday's adventures in the grumblemobile.

I'd previously discovered McCoy arrived from the factory with a pushbutton for a fuse ... and relying on me as a navigator while lost in traffic in an unfamiliar city during a rainstorm created lots of finger-pointing ... and opportunities for spontaneous ignition. Like, at one stoplight:

"Joe, roll down your window and ask that guy in the semi where we are and how to get where we're going."

"You mean that guy who looks like he just escaped from prison? McCoy, men never ask for directions."

"Why not? And you're about to make me ill."

"Because men never actually get lost when they're driving."

Disgust, muttering and dagger eyes: "Lean back and get your big head out of the way. I'll do it."

But in the end McCoy was a good sport ... and didn't make me ride in the trunk on the way back.

At least, not the whole way.

I thought LOST was on hiatus - updated

There's a tableaux occuring downstairs I can't quite figure out.

McCoy's laptop is parked on dj's table in my dining room.

Everytime I go near it I'm afraid black smoke is gonna come swirling through the screen-saver, chase me through the downstairs for a few minutes and then drag me kicking and screaming down down the ductwork ... at this point I wouldn't be surprised if I found a big alabaster foot wading in the bathtub.

---

Just went downstairs, and McCoy's laptop is gone.

Stop it.

I found the laptop in its case by the front door, just where I'd left it. Now it's back where it belongs, and so am I. Exasperating.

A Spider's Tale ... and a near-death encounter

I swung by the office yesterday afternoon to check on dj ... and ran into "bodyguard" J's wife Sz, and two of their small children in their car on the parking lot.

Suddenly as we were talking, one of the boys in the backseat began screaming and pointing in my direction (I'm used to evoking this kind of reaction, from small toddlers in particular).

But Sz said, "He's pointing at the spider. Would you mind getting it for me, please?"

Sure enough, there was a spider lowering itself from the top of the window by a single thread of silk.

I'm not particularly affected by spiders so I reached inside the rear window, caught the spider and held it cupped in my hand. Sz and I finished talking a few seconds later and as I walked away I noticed there was bodyguard J and P talking with Sd at the side staircase.

Wanting to get rid of my new friend right away, I glanced down and noticed the spider had escaped from my hand ... and discovered him vaulting over my watchband. Then he disappeared up my shirt sleeve.

Look, I take P very seriously when he describes what happens to folks who, trying to be "funny," take their eight-legged friends within close physical proximity of him. It ain't pleasant. And there I was walking straight toward him with the missing spider I'd plucked from Sz's car scrambling around loose somewhere inside my shirt.

Sd waved and said "Hello." Immediately nightmarish visions of being motioned over for a quick "howdy" and then watching the spider launch from my collar and leap toward P's forehead flashed behind my eyes ... making me wonder how truly bad it'd be if P decided I'd intentionally brought a spider along as a joke.

But I guess he never even saw me, because I slipped past without a word and in just a few more steps I was inside the building ... and out of harm's way.

I'm glad things turned out like they did: explaining to the paramedics why my legs were folded behind my shoulders and my arms tied in figure-8's, just for having a stupid spider inside my shirt, would've been more humiliating than I could handle.

Waiting at a traffic light, shoe shopping

McCoy, gravity is never so selective. Yet, being neither here nor there ... you are.

Must be your color.

"At Least They Don't Make Sparks- Uh oh, It's Already Tomorrow" Playlist:

Those Shoes - Eagles

You know your church is too big when ... -updated

I've invited lots of folks to church with me. The funny thing is, seems like non-church goers are more likely to say Yes than people who even only occasionally attend other churches.

Typically they shrug and explain, "I'd feel lost in a church that big." But there's also a subtle, uneasy squint in their eyes implying, "And whatever they're doing over there to grow that fast can't be right ... and it can't keep growing much longer before something goes wrong."

That's their reasoning for staying away, as though there's a perfect preordained size that, like Goldilock's porridge, is neither too small nor too large ... but somehow exactly "just right."

Maybe the critics think it's easier for "megachurch" members to sin when they're surrounded by thousands of other believers on Sundays and in fellowship with other members throughout the week than if 50 or 60 members meet together for an hour every Sunday morning.

So what would the critics prescribe as the "right size"? 1000? 500? Less than 100?

Christ had 12 disciples, but Judas was among them. So when the Perfect Church reaches eleven members, maybe it's time to bolt the doors and not take chances. Just to be safe.

Scripture doesn't tell us what happened, but Paul describes a major falling-out with Hymenaeus and Alexander, "whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme." 1 Timothy 1 19:20

Uh oh. Maybe that example shows us that three members is too large to be perfect, too.

The conclusion might be that the Perfect Church has just one member, but every follower of Christ I've ever met has admitted to having a few shortcomings, so that's out too.

Wow. So how do we know what's the right size to keep everybody happy?

Maybe the surest sign a church has reached the "right size" is when its leaders lose their enthusiasm and conviction about reaching outwards with the gospel, ignore the Holy Spirit and turn their attention inward to concentrate on their own agendas, squabbles and selfishness instead.

Uh oh, it's a quiz!

Don't act like you didn't know it was coming. I hope you're prepared, so let's get right down to it.

Being a devoted and diligent reader, you were watching the live video feed from Africa last night, weren't you?

I mean, weren't you?

For tonight's Bluebook quiz separating you husks from all the kernels, answer the following:

What drove past the water hole just after 6:45am [their local sunrise] this morning?

(A) Land Rover Discovery
(B) Land Rover Series truck
(C) Toyota diesel with no top
(D) There was no truck; that was a rhino

Time's up, put down your pencils and turn your papers over on your desk.

The correct answer is (C). Those who answered correctly receive a Bluebook A on the scorecard and may proceed to Tonight's Playlist. The rest of you need to lose your Ipods, forget about Halo and stop skimming.

I AM a Winner! Playlist:

Who Do you Love? - George Thorogood and The Destroyers
----------nothing less than Full Volume please, Mr. Zulu======

I don't THINK I'm a fuddy-duddy

Yeah it's silly but I've got accounts at both MySpace and Facebook.

It's silly and a distraction ... not to mention a waste of time ... because I've also got this awesome and virtually unused technological marvel sitting on my desk that makes social networking sites 100% obsolete.

It's called a telephone.

An Open Plea to De-Sleaze, Please
You need to have each other's numbers to qualify as "friends" but one of my MySpace"friends" is Jill Wagner, "The Mercury Girl" from TV car commercials.

I'm not posting it here but today Jill's new profile photo shows her posed in a black two piece something-or-other that might've been sewn by a middle schooler inspired by a Victoria's Secret catalog ... if he was a sci-fi fan, called his sister a Murloc and blogged about the government's secret military bases on Mars.

Her hip-slung-low pose, overdone base, "I'm so totally always here for you" facial expression and torched-dry hair styling all suggestively combine to render her inextricably anonymous among the thousands of bikinied actress wannabes who sincerely believe the road to box office success is paved with skin and curbed with cleavage.

Because they have nothing else to offer.

Probably not at all what she intended ... the image is painfully superficial and disappointly falls short of intriguing or even engaging the viewer. It doesn't even hint Jill might have a unique presence or personality we'd be interested in finding out more about. Unless you're a 14-yr old boy, the photo amounts to a big So What?

It's like trying to out-Paris Paris Hilton. Even if you could, where would that leave you?

Jill, you're trying to blend into the crud crowd when you've got absolutely no reason at all to try to.

And if you were paying big bucks for my advice that's just what I'd tell you.

Guess I'm just dense about Justice ...

Started thinking about a peculiar scenario this morning.

Imagine hearing on the news that a judge about to pass sentence in a particularly cruel domestic abuse case suddenly announced, "It's clear beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of harming his wife and molesting his children for more than 10 years and deserves a life sentence. But because he stubbornly questions my authority, I have no choice but to find him Not Guilty. Sir, you are hereby released to go on about your business ... and have fun with the rest of your life."

Imagine the indignation we'd see from the victims and their families. Imagine the outrage we'd hear about this terrible miscarriage of justice.

Then picture courts across the country adopting the same bold new precedent: all a defendant need do, no matter what the charges against him, is challenge the court's right to pass judgement or question its authority to hold him accountable in any way for his crimes.

Bank robbers, child molesters, rapists, murderers and terrorists are simultaneously released as every inmate in the US challenges his presiding judge's authority. In fact, we wouldn't need prisons any more because lacking authority to impose sanctions, the new legal system allows each person to decide for themselves what's legal and what's not.

Would that be justice? Would anyone willingly choose to live under such a crazy "rule of law"?

Still atheists and skeptics argue their inalienable right to ignore God's law, and scoff at His authority to pass judgment and hold every one of us ultimately accountable for our actions.

But God's authority is eternal and without fault, and never depended upon consent or popular consensus in the first place.

This is THE FEEL GOOD Church, isn't it? - updated

Sometimes I wonder what our church's first-time visitors must think. Especially today, when The P taught what it means to be a man.

-Arriving from the highway, the building sure looks more industrial than church-ish. There's no steeple, no cross, and no stained glass windows signifying right here is a church.
-But there's people greeting traffic on the parking lot and still others welcoming guests as they enter the auditorium. And not a single one of the 1200-or-so volunteers is dressed in a suit. But they're all smiling and seem glad to be doing what they're doing.
-Instead of a wood panelled vestibule, there's a functional atrium that looks a lot like an airport terminal.
-There's no pulpit or baptistry inside the auditorium; there's a poured concrete stage with theatrical-caliber lighting, huge video screens and outrageously BIG SPEAKERS instead.

So far, as the first-time visitor is escorted by a volunteer usher to his or her seat, maybe this still seems like the Feel Good Church after all.

-After the rock band plays (there's no choir, no choir robes) and things settle down it might be hard to tell who's the pastor, because he comes out without fanfare and he's dressed in jeans ... pretty much like everybody else.
-He doesn't have his hair in a pompadour, wear expensive jewelry or split "Jesus" into three syllables.

But then things are likely to become suddenly and distinctly uneasy.

Like today, when Perry taught men the importance of setting Christ, and not corporate executives or celebrity icons like Brad Pitt, as their role model. And things get distinctly tense when folks hear Jesus Christ presented for the first time from scripture as a powerful warrior who fights for those he loves, instead of as a wimpy, doe-eyed lamb-loving victim.

Maybe lots of men went home tonight feeling uneasy and questioning most of what they believed about themselves. Maybe there are dozens more who got angry learning that their marriage is not All ABout Me, that their lives must absolutely not revolve around work or career, that wives and family come first and it's NOT OK EVER to be on a short fuse because of work-related stress ... and solemnly promised themelves they'd never go back.

On the other hand, maybe there are several thousand wives, families and children who by tomorrow morning will have witnessed the Holy Spirit at work as a result of today's message, and seen a change in their husband, fiance, boyfriend or father signalling a reason not to give up, not to despair or file for divorce ... and will have realized first-hand that only Jesus Christ changes lives.

Maybe it's not about showing up at church expecting to feel good, after all.

Maybe it's about hearing the gospel taught from scripture, setting Christ as our standard and not accepting the selfishness of settling for anything less.

Disclaimer: I'm not on the church staff nor am I writing on anyone else's behalf. Any viewpoints, opinions or impressions presented here are entirely my own, as are any errors, ommissions or misstatements of fact.

why I don't sing in church - clarified + more & some extry

Because my voice sounds like a pregnant seal regurgitating last week's herring buffet.

Can that Rose-Ann girl belt out a tune, or not? Say.

Saturday Night in The Electric City

I've been trying to think of this song for months.

Hope you like it ... because no matter where you are, what you're doing or who you're with ... in some part of the world it's always Saturday Night in The Electric City.

Tomorrow Never Knows - Phil Collins

Hope you enjoy this as much as I do - UPDATED

Live video feed from Africa.

I fixed the mis-typed link; sorry about that.

Flu-eeeww

Wow, all day I've like a feather's tickling the back of my throat and every joint's getting a continuous electrical shock ... like what you get sticking a metal fork in the toaster trying to coax a stuck waffle from the inside.

Ok, maybe not quite that intense.

How many weeks has the flu been keepin' the man down? Long enough, yet too long to be whining about.

Housekeeping Department
One of my goals for next week is to reorganize The Blue Book so the posts are sorted into different categories like Humor, Friends, Music, Miscellaneous, Technology and Seriously Spiritual.

I've been concerned about posts sometimes launching like rockets into space and then jettisoning unfamiliar readers at strange, ambiguous destinations. Like when I jump from serious spiritual topics immediately to a post about Justin Timberlake before moving on to posts about friends from Paris in the 1920s.

And only readers familiar with McCoy are likely to make sense of Orp, The Frashleys or see why Trigger's ESP is amusing.

Hopefully the sorting and reorganization will make sense, or at least be less distracting.

she's bringing brain surgery back

"What could be more interesting than the human brain: the kidneys, the spleen, the skin? No. There is nothing that rivals the human brain in complexity, elegance, or mystery.

"Katrina Firlik is a neurosurgeon, one of only two hundred or so women among the alpha males who dominate this high-pressure, high-prestige medical specialty."


"Firlik both vividly describes some of her surgeries (including a man with maggots eating his brain) and bluntly appraises the questions on what parts of our mind make us human (when pondering an operation she did on an infant with hydrancephaly, who only had the lower reptilian parts of the brain).

"And when she comes home at night, looking for love, her husband oftentimes pushes her away, complaining she smells like bone dust."

-blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2006/11/the_brain_is_so.html

can this be true?

Chocolate popcorn? For real? See for yourself.

General Nonsense

About LOST
Since when did ABC's hit series "Lost" move to Wednesday nights? I thought it always came on Thursdays at 8 PM.

Anyway ... they may shoot 16 new episodes but I doubt we'll ever see them ... unless they're included on the DVD after the series is cancelled in mid-spring 2007.

Bow Wow Tacos
I made tacos for lunch. They taste like wet dog hair. I added some olive oil and red pepper powder to the ground beef while it was cooking. Wonder if that's a bad combination of ingredients.

The Weekend Starts Tomorrow - unless ABC changes that, too
A weekend without The Frashleys is like a month without sunshine.

Oh, I'd never let myself get into THAT situation ... - UPDATED

Not that long ago Tom over at Adrenaline told me about the racing school he'd attended at Road Atlanta.

The gist of his point was this: By the time you realize you're going too fast into a turn it's already too late to try slowing down by slamming on the brakes. Your only option is to stand on the accelerator and keep steering through the turn. Sounds simple, right?

Doesn't it?

Tom said try doing it when you hit the turn clocking 100 miles an hour: your fingers feel like they'll splinter the steering wheel between your knuckles. You've got to force your foot away from the brakes and onto the gas pedal to keep from spinning out ... any maybe doing the Flaming Bondo Tango with a retaining wall.

As recently as a few months ago I trusted "self control" and believed in "lines" ... a certain point separating what was "okay" and what was "out of bounds." Keeping an eye on the "line" without crossing it was supposed to keep things "safe."

For example, sitting on the couch with your new honey in front of the TV with all the lights off, you know what line not to cross, right? So long as we remember the line means Everybody Keeps Their Clothes On and Their Hands to Themselves then there's no chance of ever getting in trouble, right?

No, not right at all.

Eventually even I figured out voluntary lines are risky, even when you know where they are, because lines quickly blur and lose focus the faster you're racing toward them. The only solution I know is to completely, totally and absolutely avoid any scenario or situation with the potential to suddenly pick up speed and create its own momentum.

Stumbling is only the first part of a fall: it's actually the momentum created by your direction and velocity that sends you sprawling toward the nearest hard surface and makes catching yourself before hitting the ground almost impossible.

Trusting arbitrary lines to keep your revs below the redline might be a very bad idea because self-imposed lines ignore momentum.

It's like the guy in his boat out sightseeing on the Niagara River. He sees the sign along the shore warning him "Danger: Waterfall Ahead" He should never have allowed himself to get carried along far enough to see the sign in the first place but he's not worried ... because lines are for other people.

He's just out to have a good time and trusts his own boundaries, the mental reference points where he'll have as much fun as he wants to and then magically stop and turn himself around.

But soon as he reaches his self-imposed stopping point he discovers to his horror that a river dumping 600,000 gallons of water per second over a waterfall creates a terrifically strong current and carries a whole lot more momentum than he expected. He can't believe he's been trapped by the current and realizes he's made an Awfully Bad Mistake. But the river neither cares or notices.

Captain Confident is left with surprisingly little time for self-pity before the river (which he never noticed was flowing at the same speed and in the same direction the whole time) flings his flimsy boat backwards over the falls.

Yet the surprised look on his face in the millisecond before his boat begins its smashing affair with the rocks waiting 1200 feet below tells us he's truly shocked that such a thing could happen. Hadn't he tried stopping at the line?

Having a "stopping point" didn't do him any good because the current already had momentum moving beneath him soon as he put his boat in the current ... and long before before he reached the first Danger sign. He crossed the line and found he could no longer stop.

It's like that voice inside your head teasing, But you want to ... and nobody's ever gonna find out. Just do it.

By the time that voice pops up you've already passed 100 heading into the corner, and forgotten there's a terrifically immoveable concrete wall ahead ready to bounce that momentum back in your direction.

And in closing, the majority of men agrees that ...

growing old before my time

Ils sont toujours dessus
Sous la lumière des étoiles
Sous les lumières d'étape
Là où tout est vrai
Le monde est exact
Toute la nuit
Chez la fille
La nuit entière
C'est vrai
La nuit tranquille.

Yeah well, one day I hope ya'll have kids ... and then you'll see what it's like.

No Postage Necessary

I forgot to include The Playlist in a post from last week; since then I forgot which post.

So it's just this song:

"Monday Lasts All Day But VOLUME Seldom Disappoints" Playlist
Shine - Collective Soul